Presidential Rule Likely in Nepal, Rumors Spread like Wild Fire

from Telegraph Nepal

Tighten your belts please.

Achtung! Nepalese citizens, both within and without, we have a very dangerous news for you all, this evening, 7.46 PM, NST.

Rumors have spread like a wild fire in Kathmandu that by Saturday evening, October 31, 2009, the Nepal President, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav, will take over the charge of the nation.

Presidential rule, or say a sort of military regime, will thus prevail in this country, which is your country, my country, our country-mother Nepal.

Talks so far to seduce the Maoists have failed and the President is in consultations with his former party affiliated legal practitioners. The PM has met him twice well within twenty four hours. Home Minister, Bhim Rawal, is in all preparedness, we have been told. High placed sources even claim that Nepal Army too has been kept on high alert. This remains to be substantiated though.

Maoist party vice chairman, Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai has freshly said that his party will not settle for less this time. We have only two days left from now. The Maoists fresh revolt, as already announced, begins November 1, 2009.

MJF splinter President, Upendra Yadav, has demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister for having failed to garner consensus and resume the proceedings of the now disrupted parliament and the CA body.

“The PM has to resign”, Yadav opines.

Prachanda says that the incumbent government led by Madhav Kumar Nepal is a remote control one.

He, however, doesn’t reveal as to where from this remote control is being handled?

Speaker Subash Nembang, who knocked each and every door at time of his selection/election to the current post, is enjoying his lucrative post caring little that he should have been the one to mediate in between the ruling coalition parties and the Maoists. He is cheating the nation, to put it mildly.

He is carefree. He will have to pay the price the day he is out from the current post which is approaching fast due to his own weaknesses.

Dr. Bhattarai says that if the cadres of his party were repressed by the government during the impending agitation, they will retaliate with equal force. This means the element of violence would surely be there. This is very bad speculation.

Summing up, a sort of chaotic situation is lurking large OVER THE NEPALI SKY.

What will happen the next moment, nobody can predict, at least not the analysts here.

Had Sri Lankan President not been in Nepal, the Presidential emergency orders would have already come into action.

Rumors say that the moment the Sri Lankan President takes off from the Nepali ground, Dr. Yadav will come into action.

Thus the days ahead, as predicted by Bam Dev Gautam (See spine tingling October 21, 2009, statement) are not only dangerous but contain also the germs of a civil war.

Pashupatinath may bless us all and this unfortunate country.

Let’s hope that all these were rumors only and that Nepal will remain safe under the “active and matured” leadership of the India elevated Nepal Prime Minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal.

God bless Mr. Nepal and Mother Nepal whose sons and daughters have gone erratic.

2009-10-29 20:14:16

A Maoist Agricultural Center in Nepal

United We Blog! has an interesting first hand report (with pictures) on one of the agricultural cooperatives set up by the people's movement in Nepal. It can be found here.

Bhattarai floats three options for ending deadlock

reprinted from nepalnews.com

Maoist vice chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai has said that his party is ready to end the obstruction in the parliament if the Nepali Congress and UML agree on any of the three options his party has floated.

Speaking during a Deusi programme organised by a group of journalists Sunday, Bhattarai said the deadlock would end quickly if the parties agreed for a parliamentary debate on civilian supremacy or signed a joint resolution on the president's move. The third option, according to him, would be an apology from the President for his move in the army chief row.

Bhattarai also said the Maoist party would launch fresh protest movement if the two ruling parties, NC and UML, rejected these options.

To recall, the Maoist party had put similar conditions for resolving the current crisis during the three-party meetings, but the NC dismissed all of them.

However, the three parties formed a three-member committee to prepare a draft of consensus. The committee will get down to work immediately after Tihar festival.

Dark past returns to haunt Nepal

reprinted from Times of India

KATHMANDU: “When the People’s War ended, I thought I will finally get justice,” sobbed Devi Sunuwar as she watched a film made on her 15-year-old daughter Maina, who was arrested by the army in 2004, tortured to death and buried clandestinely. “But even after a peace agreement was signed in 2006, the government agreed to punish those guilty of killing my daughter and the court asked police to arrest her killers, the army men remain at large. I fought for justice during the civil war but now that we have peace, hope begins to desert me.”

“There is no justice in Nepal, no rule of law and no government,” says Dhoj Dhami, uncle of Jaya Lal Dham who was shot dead by security forces in Feb 2005 in Kanchanpur district after being tied to a tree and tortured. “I want to see a Nepal where... all those responsible for human rights violations must be brought to justice.”

The angry cry of 62 families with tales of suffering and a son or daughter or father missing in the course of the Maoists’ “People’s War” was resurrected in the capital Friday by two human rights organisations even as the prime minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, flew to his home town in Rautahat to host a tea party to celebrate the advent of Tihar, Nepal’s five-day festival similar to India’s Diwali.

Human Rights Watch and Advocacy Forum jointly released a report, “Still Waiting for Justice: No End to Impunity in Nepal,” that documents the frustrating lack of action over the 62 cases they have been following since the insurgency with the major parties ignoring their pledge in the peace pact signed three years ago to end impunity and bring human rights abuses to justice.

“A lack of political will and consensus, prevailing political instability, and a lack of progress in the peace process has meant the government has not delivered on its promises to prosecute these crimes, as set out in the 2006 peace agreement,” the two rights watchdogs said.

Though over 16,000 people died during the 10-year conflict and there are thousands of people missing still, not a single perpetrator has been punished by a civilian court, thanks to pressure by political parties on the police not to investigate certain cases and refusal by the Nepal Army to cooperate with police investigations.

“In several other cases, relatives are losing hope and are no longer actively pursuing the case, tired of constantly fighting obstacles put in their way by the police and other authorities,” the report said. Bhumi Sara Thapa, mother of Dal Bahadur Thapa and his wife Parbati Thapa, who were killed by security forces, told Advocacy Forum, “When I filed a First Information Report with the police, I had hoped that my family would get justice; the accused would be punished and my family would receive compensation for the living and education of my children. Although it has been years since I started struggling for justice, nothing has happened yet. I don't have much hope because I think the government is reluctant to provide justice.”

Advocacy Forum, that is fighting many of the cases on behalf of the victims’ families, and Human Rights Watch are asking the government to investigate and prosecute all persons responsible for abuses and set up a special unit of senior police investigators to investigate cases against army officers. They are also asking for the truth and reconciliation commission the ruling parties promised to form but then began dragging their feet.

The report also asks Nepal’s influential international donors to pressure the government to promote reform of security forces. “India has a major role to play,” Advocacy Forum executive director told TNN during the launch of an earlier repor last year. “The Indian government supports the Nepal Army with subsidised arms and training and there are close ties between the two armies. If India had urged Nepal to prosecute war criminals, the government would have listened.”

Struggle targets puppet government

reposted from krishnasen online
The declared struggles by UCPN-Maoist have been advancing victoriously. The programmes of struggle are appearing into new heights with the active participation and the full support of the people. After central committee meeting of UCPN-Maoist, the people have been hopeful on the protection of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The national question has been a main and the burning question to the Nepalese people. However, the political situation of the country is still unclear and the common agendas for forming a Comprehensive United Front are still left to be found. It shows that the polarization of the politics has not taken its concrete shape and size. UCPN-Maoist is fulfilling its declared programmes in an effective way. In course of completing half of the programmes of struggle, the puppet government is in search of supporters and the directors. The latest visit of the puppet Ministers in the neighbouring countries and the would be visit of Prime Minister of the puppet government Madhav Nepal to India is the result of the increasing forceful effect of the struggle under the leadership of Maoist.

The puppet government and its allies are again trying to hatch conspiracies against the largest party in the legislative-parliament. The news papers have published out that Nepali Congress leader GP Koirala has ‘requested the Nepal Army to be alert’. This clearly shows that the allies of counter-revolutionaries and the puppets are requesting the foreign powers to assist for the suppression of ongoing victorious struggle of UCPN-Maoist. The rush to the foreign countries reveals the secret humorously.

The people of the country are feeling a danger of the internal-conflict that is going to be imposed by the alliance of the puppets. The national capitalists and the traders and the businessmen of the country are not expecting their bright future from the puppet government. They are in suspicion that Madhav Nepal will sign in any anti-nation and anti-people bi-lateral treaty or compromise in his India visit. Expansionist Indian rulers will try to take the disadvantages how much they can take from their puppet. The Nepalese people are very conscious and aware that the last fight for the national independency and territorial integrity is still left. If the puppet government will forcefully impose the conflict in the blessing of the foreign powers, it will directly turn towards the concrete shape of the movement of national independency.

Maoists form ’shadow’ cabinet.

The Unified CPN (Maoist) has formed 18 departments resembling the ministries of the government.

A meeting of the party’s Joint National People’s Movement Committee on Sunday formed the departments. Many of the departments are coordinated by party leaders who were ministers in related ministries in the Maoist-led government.

Dr Baburam Bhattarai, who was the finance minister in the previous government, is the coordinator of the Planning and Finance Department.

Likewise, Giriraj Mani Pokhrel, the former health minister coordinates the health department and former tourism minister Hisila Yami coordinates the tourism, physical infrastructure and science department.

Along with the central departments, the Maoists have also decided to form local bodies.
Maoist leaders say, the departments and the local bodies will not function as a parallel government yet, but can be converted to one if such situation comes.

“It will not be parallel as of now, but the people can form their own local bodies if need be,” said Lokendra Bista, coordinator of the newly formed agriculture and cooperatives department.